Rape is over-rated.

It is time to stop rape hysteria, to re-think the length of sentencing for rape, to stem the ever growing number of non-violent and even consensual types of rape, to reinstitute due process and constitutional rights for the accused. Rape has ceased to be a special crime (see (1)), we should treat rape like any other crime. This is not "rape apology", it is down to earth "rape realism". Rape is bad. Rape is wrong. But we believe it is 100 times worse to be paralyzed for life or have large part of our body burned and scarred for life then to suffer a gentle consented-but-drunk-date-rape for half an hour.

We were brought up with feminist credo, reinforced by politically correct colleges. It took us effort to overcome our brain washing. It required reading articles and books to see the mistakes, the misleading wrong logic, the cruel consequences of feminist and religious dogma. We were not born nor indoctrinated to be "anti-feminists" (a label we can accept), nor "rape apologists" or "misogynists" (labels that we will reject as unjustified).

We have been warned of the dangers of challenging the central tenet of feminist rape culture belief

This is far worse then Galileo Galilei’s disrespect of some peripheral topic in the Bible regarding planetary motion. It is like doubting God’s existence.

We have been warned that this irreverent post might lead to vigilante persecution of the authors, with trumped-up false accusations, with Interpol hunting us down for our dangerous politically incorrect ideas.

We have an irrational and probably unwarranted trust that dissenting people could discuss this article on its merit and try to disprove it with arguments and logic. Unfortunately, logic can be very manipulative and confusing because of misleading and confusing terminology (see (3) above).

Men are violently averse to rape, even more so then women

We are very aware then most good men are extremely averse to rape, "All men are rapists" is as unwarranted and unjust as saying "all women are gold digging cheating paternity fraudsters".

Men, as a class, loathe and detest rape more than women do.[…]

[President] Roosevelt declared without equivocation (and without explanation) that rape is a crime "even worse than murder" that deserves the death penalty. That might strike modern readers as astonishing, but during the oral argument of the Kennedy v. Louisiana, 2008 U.S. LEXIS 5262 (June 25, 2008), Justice Ginsburg offered an explanation. Ginsburg noted that the historical imposition of the death penalty in rape cases stems from a tradition "when a woman was regarded as as good as dead once she was raped; and the crime was thought to be an offense against her husband or her father as much as it was to her." Treating rape as akin to murder, and thus warranting the death penalty, did "no kindness to women" she noted. The "legal" executions of men for rape, and the illegal lynchings for rape that President Theodore Roosevelt decried, were carried out almost exclusively by men. Against men. Indeed, as we relate on this site, the killings, the beatings, and virtually all the other physical atrocities perpetrated against men falsely accused of rape are carried out by men. The False Rape Society: There is no ‘rape culture.’ Period.

This is probably why man-hating feminists use female superior verbal manipulation skills to ever expand the definitions of "rape" and "non-consent", to con women-loving good men into joining the lynch mob against consenting-but-drunk-girl-rapists, consenting-underage-girl-rapists, and, falsely-accused-but-presumed-guilty-rapists. From there it is only one step to lynch the mean "rape apologist" authors at Human-Stupidity.com.

[Roosevelt] also warned: "’The mob which lynches a negro charged with rape will in a little while lynch a white man suspected of crime.’

Roosevelt could have never imagined that nowadays US colleges and the US legal system itself lynch white or black men alike.

1) Rape consequences are not what they used to be

Rape was terrible: reproductive and social impact of rape

Why rape was as serious a crime as murder

In the distant past, virginity at marriage was the only guarantee for a husband to be sure that the offspring was his. There was no DNA testing. There also was no birth control, nor abortion. A raped virgin woman lost all her value on the marriage market, and, virgin or not, was at great risk to bear a child from her rapist.

In some cultures, rape victims get shunned, stoned or killed. Real victim blaming! Because the woman lost her virginity, her marriageability was destroyed. She lost her "freshness seal". No decent man would marry her. Even less so if she actually became pregnant. One salvation would be a shotgun marriage, where the girl’s family would force the rapist to marry the "damaged good", the raped girl.

Shocking? These were drastic solutions to solve a terrible problem.

This is a similar moral dilemma a lioness has after a new lion took over the pride and killed all her cubs. A lioness with the moral principles, who would reject the only suitor and remain chaste would have no offspring. So a lioness does everything to protect her cubs from being killed. But, once they are killed she becomes fertile and consorts with a killer off her babies.

If the woman was already married, then similar damage would be done. The husband would lose his paternal certainty. The next baby could be the rapists’. Terrible for a husband, and thus terrible for the woman.

This explains why, historically, rape has been considered an extremely serious grave offense, similar to murder.

Rape, terrible no more: modern technological progress alleviates most consequences of rape

Like virginity, rape should be taken less seriously today: abortion, DNA testing eases the consequences of rape

We do not claim that rape is inoffensive and harmless. Rather, our point is that the advent of birth control, abortion, and DNA testing changed the consequences (described above) of sexual behavior. Just as virginity became almost irrelevant, rape has lost most of its terrible life changing consequences:

Rape does no more make a women unmarriageable

Rape does no more force a woman to give birth to an unwanted baby fathered by the rapist (there is always abortion)

Rape does no more leave the actual or future husband unsure about paternity, if he is the father (DNA testing) nor put a husband at special risk of having a wife pregnant from a rapist (abortion, birth control)

Rape ceased to be as serious as murder

Rape is certainly still a crime and is a very unpleasant experience. But it does no more deserve the special distinction as an extremely serious crime, comparable only to murder.

Now that technology has taken away the reproductive and social consequences of rape (as described above), rape alone, in itself, has no long term physical consequences. (For the purpose of our discussion here: if there are injuries during rape, then we define these injuries are separate crimes in addition to the rape. If the penetration caused injuries, then the injury still is a separate crime.)

Rape: less serious consequences then face-disfiguring injuries

Penetrative rape certainly has less serious consequences then penetration with a knife, or a bullet, anywhere in the body

Rape seems to have less serious long term consequences then burns in the face, punches that break front teeth or cause multiple breaks in facial bones

Without the reproductive and social consequences of rape described above, then b

Being a rape victim seems to be comparable to crimes like

dunked into a toilet,

violently held or tied down,

Being choked out in a fight,

force-fed disgusting items.

Such crimes are perpetrated against men and women all the time by bullies and other criminals.

Feminist illogic

We will not go as far as to claim that heterosexual rape is a positive experience, though that argument could be made by logical deductions from (false) feminist premise that both genders are equal:

by the feminist argument that female sexuality is the same as that of males. Any man who truly believed that would be unsympathetic towards a woman who had been raped, because the chances are that he would regard the idea of being raped by women as a positive fantasy. Glenn Wilson on Rape

2) Rape prevalence is not what it used to be

US rape statistics show that after a maximum in 1992, the frequency of forcible rape declined in spite of increased population. There never was as much rape as feminist propaganda would want to make us believe:

There also is the entire false rape accusation industry. False rape accusations always existed but multiplied because feminist laws made rape accusations so much easier and postulated the lie that "women don’t lie about rape".

Rape allegations frequently serve as a cover-up for mistakes or misdeeds. Girls who drink themselves into a alcoholic stupor blame Date-rape drug drink spiking. Forensics show that most claims of Rohypnol spiking are false.

3) Rape is not what it used to be

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person’s consent. Wikipedia

50 years ago the words consent and rape still had their original meanings.

4) Rape is over-rated

Male on male rape, like in prison, has never been given special attention. Though prison rape deserves more attention, nobody would suggest removal of due process and inversion of the burden of proof. Now that male on female rape has no major reproductive consequences, it should not be accorded more seriousness then male on male rape.

We believe that 95% new rape legislation of the last 50 years should be unceremoniously scrapped. We made a point that during the last 50 years rape has become less relevant and less damaging then during prior human history.

Rape is a crime, but due to modern technological advances in abortion and DNA testing, it is no different from battery, forcible robbery, and other "normal" crimes.

Due process has to be re-instituted in rape legislation. It is our legal tradition that rather 10 guilty go free then one innocent be convicted. Due process violations are more egregious in date rape and other modern rape inventions. If it can not be proven, too bad. Bullies and known Mafia goons also escape conviction because of due process. Prosecution of true forcible violent stranger rape is less impeded if bound by due process.

The rape of our language has to end. We should return to clear vocabulary. Consent is consent, illicit sex with a consenting minor is just that, and not non-consensual rape. 17 year olds are no children, rather only those under 14 or under 12.

Statutory rape and age of consent should be analyzed by honest scientists unimpeded by US senate and US congress vote interference in scientific research (Rind study)

We suggest that those concerned about underage adolescents use other protection then blanket draconian punishments. Parental consent, mandatory counseling before sexual relation with a minor, notary declaration of intent, etc.

Counseling and/or notarized declarations could also be used to legalize relations with power differentials, e.g. at work places. A large percentage of older University professors from the 1960’ies are married to former graduate students of theirs. We would like to see this freedom back again.

Marital rape should have a special burden of proof (so husbands don’t have to live a life in constant fear accusations at any time). In a marriage there is a presumption that taking a beer from the fridge or borrowing the other person’s car will not lead to theft or robbery proceedings. To invalidate such a presumption, a public notification would be required, that from now on the car must not be borrowed, and that sex is not to be taken for granted or that she does not agree to sex ever. Then the burden of proof would be lowered.

37 thoughts on “What’s so terrible about rape? Rape is not as bad as it used to be!”

SG, Sept. 17, 2015
Beating you was assault and battery, aggravated assault, something like that. It was not rape. It was a crime on its own.
Biting your breasts and ripping your labia was not rape. It was more assault and battery, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, mayhem, something of that sort. It was not rape. It was a serious crime on its own.
Penetrating your vagina with his penis was rape. Ejaculating into your vagina was aggravated rape.
Terrorizing, torturing you was another crime distinct from the things that he did to torture you.
Tell me, in your case do you care what he goes to prison for or do you care more about the certainty of conviction and how long he is sentenced?
Your experience was certainly VIOLENT rape. Rape accomplished not with just sufficient force to accomplish the rape, with minimal bruising, no Clintoning (grabbing the victim’s upper lip with his teeth to stop her struggling, not with intent to bite or tear it off) her, but with extreme violence and torture.

I was reading the pages about the child sex trauma myth and found them interesting. I had initially thought the same thing about female rape in that western women are conditioned from cradle to grave to believe that rape is the worst thing that could possibly happen to them and if it happened, then they would be immediately traumatized by it, no questions asked. The scientifically documented nocebo effect.

“In one experiment, asthmatic patients breathed in a vapor that researchers told them was a chemical irritant or allergen. Nearly half of the patients experienced breathing problems, with a dozen developing full-blown attacks. They were “treated” with a substance they believed to be a bronchodilating medicine, and recovered immediately. In actuality, both the “irritant” and the “medicine” were a nebulized saltwater solution.”*

It struck me as odd that trauma would be a natural reaction to rape (I’m excluding rape that includes extreme violence and mutilation or results in disease) then why do the majority of women harbor rape and rough sex fantasies?

How do you explain the fact that many women report intense orgasms during rape, that they never have during consensual sex with their significant other? I read an account where a guy said him and his gf had been together 4 years and she has yet to have an orgasm with him, yet had one when she was raped?

I think the above point ties into why rape is so underreported. The official orthodoxy is that women will be treated badly by police or written off automatically. This is untrue. I worked in law enforcement. Rape is investigated like everything else. Those who report rape are treated with as much respect as a robbery victim. Having said that, can anyone imagine a woman being hit by her date with an iron pipe, having her teeth knocked out, jaw broken and not reporting it to the cops? Neither can I. Nearly all women would report that. Yet, if her date overpowers her or threatens her into sex, which apparently is worse than being maimed with an iron pipe, she doesn’t report it? See the point above for the real reason she may fail to report it.

Women are typically drawn to violent men instead of “nice guys”. The type of men more likely to rape are exactly the type of man she cheats on her husband with. Dave from accounting, the overweight, awkward, balding, short, physically unaggressive, stereotypical nice guy who would never tell a dirty joke as to not to offend a woman, is very unlikely to rape a woman. He’s the guy who always gets “friend zoned”. Sanchez, the mexican gangbanger who just got out of prison for stabbing a man during a bar fight, has been known to beat his ex girlfriends and is one felony away from a life sentence is exactly the type of guy that would rape a woman. Yet women are drawn to him like flies to a corpse. The funny thing is, Dave would be thought of as the potential rapist. Women will consistently choose Sanchez over Dave and may end up raped in the process.

Add to that the fact that rape has been part of human history since humans existed. Women have coped with it just fine up until recent times. In fact, it was men who was most offended by it because of the evolutionary reasons above. It wasn’t so much out of concern for the woman but himself. In countries where rape is more so a fact of life, women’s attitudes towards it tend to be ho hum, unless it contains an element of extreme violence like disfigurement, disease or mutilation.

Remember Joane De Rijke, the dutch journalist who was kidnapped, held for ransom and raped multiple times by the Taliban leader? When she was rescued she had nothing bad to say about her captors, after all, they gave her “tea and biscuits and he had alot of testosterone, so he couldn’t control himself”. This caused a shitstorm of moral indignation. This woman was raped and yet not having the appropriate politically correct reaction to being raped. So of course, it HAD TO BE Stockholm Syndrome or she really is traumatized but didn’t know it.

My theory is that she probably experienced sexual enjoyment from being dominated by a strong, powerful, violent man. He comes back from a long, hard day of killing and maiming french soldiers and of course after all that killing and maiming and beheading, he has to rape his female captive to wind the day down. Odds are, while not consciously wanting to be raped, nature is not politically correct and doesn’t care about our social sensibilities. The taliban leader got her female parts going in a way that the neuteured nice guys she despises in reality, but says that she wants, never could. Of course, that’s too dangerously close to the truth, so we’ll just tell her she’s traumatized, until she actually becomes traumatized, thus proving feminist orthodoxy correct.

Excellent read. My own experiences with women, many many women are that they do not know what the fuck they want. I even freaked out when in my youth a woman asked me to forcefully fuck her and hold a knife to her throat. I didn’t agree to do it, and ended up with blue balls that night. Women are fickle and emotional. The 80/20 rule is definitely a real thing. Despite being a large land owner who is charismatic, I choose not to date and instead I am MGTOW. I am sick of the bullshit from women. They have no idea what they want. You have to put on a stoic face all of the time in order to get their panties wet. Too much fucking work. I’d rather have a loyal dog.

Thanks for your response. I do agree with you that regret and rape are not the same thing, having experienced both, the difference is pretty obvious. I don’t agree with your belief that rape does not have reproductive consequences as not all women share the same the views on abortion and some including myself do not believe in abortion and could never bring ourselves to have one. Social consequences well there are some but yes it could be so much worse and nowadays we have the choice to not surround ourselves with people who view us for someone else’s actions/crimes. I don’t agree with everything you have written but I understand where you are coming from, thanks again!

The reproductive consequences of forcible rape are terrible. I write elsewhere that all traits IQ, aggression, all character traits are 40% to 80% heritable. That means that the child will inherit all these traits, and will resemble the rapist in looks, behavior, violence-proneness, and (lack of) intelligence. The politically correct will not warn you, when you notice it will be late

In comparison, a date rape offspring will at least resemble a man the women found attractive enough to date. IF that was a drunk stupid decision, that is also bad.

I was raped, he beat me, bit both breasts black and blue, ripped my labia with his teeth, choked me near unconsciousness and raped me. You really can’t see what is so bad about that? I cannot take hormonal birth control(health reasons) so the morning after pill was not an option. While waiting to take a pregnancy test I was terrified and angry, all I could do was pray that this man did not get me pregnant because I couldn’t bare the thought of carrying his child or killing it. Thankfully he did not get me pregnant. I bled for days, I was bruised for weeks. While at the ER I was poked and prodded, they measured the bruises, took pictures, did a neuro exam, STI testing, swabs, gave me tetanus shot, explained to me the risks of HIV and offered me PREP, the sexual assault nurse went over reporting options and explained how that would work and told me the chances of him going to jail were slim to none. I was given follow up appointments and sent home. The ER doctor, a man, could barely stomach what had been done to me and you think “it’s not that bad”?
I am so thankful that the men in my life were compassionate and supportive and did not and do not share your views because without them I don’t think I would have been able to recover, without them i’m not sure I would have had the strength to go on.

Sorry if you feel this article applies to your experience. We mainly talk about feminist’ “re-defined rape” that includes consensual date rape of tipsy women who had a few drinks, and statutory rape of post-pubertal enthusiastically consenting 17 year olds. Your rape was forcible, a terrible experience. Furthermore, all of your injuries are crimes by themselves, covered by other parts of the penal code.

For example let’s say a wife decides to wake up her husband on his birthday with a blow job. That’s rape. The victim is unable to consent as they are unconscious. This seems like a realistic scenario (although I’m told to substitute “girl friend” for “wife” to make it more realistic).

If some rape is a good thing then rape as a whole cannot be said to be bad, but rather it is the individual elements of the rape that are themselves not rape (eg violence, humiliation, not enjoying it) which make the rape good or bad. Therefore shouldn’t we be criminalizing those elements that make rape bad, (when it is bad) and not rape itself?

This was an interesting article. I have to say I disagree with most of it. Rape is about violence and control, therefore ALL RAPE is FORCIBLE. No matter if you’re a man or a woman, your body is not someone else’s property. Everyone has the right to say no to sex or any sexual interaction.
Needless to say, it is also wrong for someone to falsely accuse someone of raping them when no rape took place.

However, I have a very strong gut feeling that the person who wrote this article may have been accused.

“all rape is forcible” if you agree to the classic definition of “rape”. By modern feminist definitions of rape, consensual “rape” of consenting 15 year olds is not forcible. Neither consensual rape of tipsy 30y who had a beer or two. Even more if they are your regular girl friend who just had a few beers.

Someone actually bothered to write a long response to “Rape is not as bad as it used to be”. It is actually an example of how people confuse, misunderstand, mislead. Or rather how they have been misled.

Yup, my thoughts, too —- has to be a man that wrote this. Rape is always hanous and despicable, whether done to a man or a woman or a child. You would think that the fear men have of being raped in prison would help the understand how women feel about being raped. But i have news for you men (and women) that seems to be lost in all the talk —- it is possible to kill a woman by raping her. A woman has major blood vessels going to her uterus/etc. and the surrounding area and it is possible to tear her up inside so bad that she will bleed to death internally. And don’t forget about our American reporter who was mass raped during Egypt’s “freedom” riots; the men almost killed her — they were pulling her apart so hard that they had pulled her bones were pulled apart at the joints. They would have killed her if it hadn’t been for the Egyptian women who interviened (and then the Egyptian police). Men can justify anything they do to a woman — the reason Feminism came to being, by the way ~~~ us women shouting, “We ain’t going to take it no more !!!!!!”

Thank you for this sensible truth-telling article. But I think the female sexuality/submission side should have been discussed in more detail, because I believe rape is not always a 100% negative experience

“Are you glad to have been raped?” questionnaire? 97% yes? Did you link from a fetish web site? I would not go as far as to condone this.

Though there is some truth to it. Getting slightly overpowered by the right guy is probably a turn-on for many women.

A woman is perfectly able to be totally clear and say: “stop now, I am dead serious, I will start screaming and hitting you if you don’t”. I quoted a case where the woman said “I should go home now”. The guy continued and thus was convicted of rape.

In your questionnaire women go to bad parts of town in slutty clothes. This way a fantasy could go further then desired. Even in your questionnaire, most did not think getting beaten and tortured was desirable.

There should be safer ways to fulfill a fantasy. The average date rape situation could be such a situation. The girl could pick the guy she desires and then put herself into a dangerous situation. Most likely the guy she picked would not use dangerous levels of violence.

Now I see, due to modern technology living out rape fantasies are less dangerous. At least, pregnancy can be avoided!

Feel free to elaborate on these issues. And everyone else, please don’t quote my comments here as my official stance on rape laws.

So let me get this straight. You are at a party, you are really drunk and pass out on the bed. Someone rapes you (let’s for the moment say they anally rape you). Nice and gently of course. You eventually wake up and realise what has happened to you.

How do you feel? Good? You haven’t really been raped at all have you?

As for your abortion comments about how pregnancy is no longer an issue – where or when do you live?? Don’t you realise that many States are trying to re-define rape to make abortion for rape victims almost impossible? Don’t you realise that the GOP are hell-bent on making abortion illegal?

And before you get too far into the man-hating feminist bullshit, consider this: we feminists (I am a man) don’t hate all men. It is personal. It is just you.

Passed out means no consent possible. Unless if consent was given before, while still fully conscious. Like in the case of a husband. But otherwise, if someone finds you passed out and has sex with you, then there was no consent.

Now imagine I get so drunk that I pass out on a public park bench. The next morning my phone, my watch, my credit cards and my money are gone. Is it theft? Yes. But will peole

So let me get this straight. You are at a party, you are really drunk and pass out on the bed. Someone rapes you (let’s for the moment say they anally rape you). Nice and gently of course. You eventually wake up and realise what has happened to you.

How do you feel? Good? You haven’t really been raped at all have you?

Thank you for using the term re-redefining rape. Human-Stupidity wrote a post with exactly that title. Note that Republicans want to prevent FREE abortions with government money for rape victims. And also take away the incentive to lie about rape to get a free abortion.

But as long as Roe vs. Wade stays, this will not make abortion impossible. Just pay as anyone else would. Just as victims of violent beatings still are supposed to pay their own medical treatment.

As for your abortion comments about how pregnancy is no longer an issue – where or when do you live?? Don’t you realise that many States are trying to re-define rape to make abortion for rape victims almost impossible? Don’t you realise that the GOP are hell-bent on making abortion illegal?

Rape, terrible no more: modern technological progress alleviates most consequences of rape

1.Rape consequences are not what they used to be:
In our modern technological world with abortion, DNA testing and birth control, rape does no more lead to unavoidable offspring, uncertain paternity, and loss of all-important virginity.

Well that’s a literal way of putting it, but really, who are you to say that the consequences aren’t what they used to be or that rape isn’t as terrible as it “once was”? What about the psychological, emotional, physical consequences that a victim will have? The good thing is, today the trauma that the victim suffered isn’t ignored.

•Rape does no more make a women unmarriageable
•Rape does no more force a woman to give birth to an unwanted baby fathered by the rapist (there is always abortion)
•Rape does no more leave the actual or future husband unsure about paternity, if he is the father (DNA testing) nor put a husband at special risk of having a wife pregnant from a rapist (abortion, birth control)

While this is true, what’s being ignored is the victim and the trauma suffered to that person.

Another thing is, I don’t like to compare crimes and assault. Being beaten, raped, brutally attacked, or murdered are all horrible. No point in making comparisons.

As for evolutionary biology of rape, it’s irrevelant.

And I do agree that age of consent and statutory rape laws need to be looked at and changed.

Nobody ever thinks women could do empowerment training and psychotherapy to be stronger and endure minute adversities without life long trauma.

Rather, there is constant effort to make women aware they were raped, if they themselves think they were not raped (like when they got themselves drunk for the purpose of getting the courage to have sex).

Women get convinced that they were traumatized. If they were not, they get talked into it. Just like underage sex and other issues.

And yes, you can compare crimes. Do you prefer to get someone knock out 5 front teeth or clean out your bank account.

Do you prefer to get raped, with no long term physical damage, or choked into brain damage.

I think you’re missing the real point, however. Rape (I’m talking about real rape, not statutory bull or anything) is deserving of the death penalty because it’s deliberately torturing another human being, and getting off on it. There’s a reason why other forms of torture are treated on a par with murder; you can’t brush that away by saying, “oh, you can still get married, and you can have an abortion anyway.”

Your essay only addresses the *economic* damage done to women (and by extension the men responsible for them) in the old days; but even if it were to somehow raise a woman’s status, forcible rape would still be a crime deserving of death. It is in every society’s best interest to make sure that those who would torture their members for fun are not allowed to walk free. Weather they do that by execution, imprisonment, or banishment, they need to make sure that torturing other humans is strictly curtailed.

Does a woman who voluntarily goes back to a man’s apartment, and then decides against sex at the last moment, really suffer torture if he then date rapes her? Does he really deserve to die for that?

Surely there are degrees of rape?

Do you also consider assaults, both physical and sexual, to be forms of torture?

If you strip away its evolutionary and historic meaning, rape is most often just an assault. In severe cases, it could be torture, just as many phsycial assaults are. To say that all rapists deserve death seems way over the top.

Simple Solution for rape (take me….if you leave me I’ll say you raped me) and the is my buying you dinner going to get me anywhere dillema. Just have the courthouses mail out a few dozen consent forms to each male and problem solved

In the second paragraph he says “this [i.e. childhood rape] has affected every aspect of my life.” What’s true for him is probably true for many men and women who survived early (or not-so-early) sexual assault.

I agree with you that not all rape is equally bad, and that it is not as devastating as it once was. But by focusing on the social consequences, and ignoring the mental/psychological ones, you may alienate more people than you intend to.

This title, of course, is meant to provoke. Nobody says rape is harmless. Or rather, forcible rape is not harmless. But, there are men committing suicide for having to live in wage slavery for their child-less ex wives, enforced by debtor’s prison. All this is, of course, anecdotal evidence. Unbiased research can say more about this.

All discussions are further muddled by the confusion about the 25 meanings of “rape”.

One site quoted this article in the context of a violent gang rape of a Nordic teen by a Muslim teen gang. This certainly is heinous, but being beaten into a life long coma by the same gang is probably even worse.

Now most “rapes” in civilized environments like colleges are far different, they often are of the consented-but-blamed-drunkenness kind. Or consented but not allowed by age of consent laws in this state rape.

You are a man right? Only a man could make light of something serious are real rape. We are not animals, our thought processes, impulse control, emotions, etc are much more highly evolved than a duck’s – real rape, violent forced on her sex leave scars. Sure, she can take care of a pregnancy through abortion (like it’s that easy to abort, many rape victims can’t bring themselves to do it) – and it’s just a hymen, who cares? Well, I’ll tell you, all girls care about their virginity and who gets to be the special person to take it. It may not matter to you, but it matters to us – losing your virginity through rape, having a violence as your first sexual experience will leave deep and lasting scars. No lifelong consequences? What if he gives her a disease? HIV can’t be cured, neither can herpes, she’ll walk around with it for the rest of her life. Don’t even get me started on the emotional damage done. I’m not talking about statutory rape which is laughable to me, or any other form of consentual ‘rape’ … I’m talking about real rape. It IS what it used to be. It’s violent, it’s painful and it leaves you with permanent scars, whether they are emotional or physical. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman being raped, the feelings are the same, I’m sure.

And no, I’m not some man-hating feminist who want to take your power away … I find many of the new morality/sex laws offensive and irritating (even downright scary!). But there is a line between what’s right and what’s wrong. Wrongfully accusing a man of rape – so wrong. Telling a rape victim ‘Oh it’s not so bad, you’ll get over it” – also wrong.

@Celine, we are totally in agreement. Real forcible rape in the classic meaning of the word is a crime.

We can argue about “how much of a crime” is it. Most women prefer to submit to rape then to be beaten severely. So maybe being beaten severely, strangled into unconsciousness, tortured, or beaten and burned into permanent disfigurement is worse then a rape with no other lasting physical damage.

Because the reproductive consequences became less serious then they were in the past.

As you say, injecting a HIV infected needle might be more severe then rape by a healthy man, maybe even by a HIV positive man, because HIV transmits with sex only with a 1/1000 chance, by needle injection with a much higher chance.

We are in total agreement about the basic issues, we can discuss relative severity of sentencing now. Or much better, how to prevent crimes and not need sentencing.

Telling a rape victim ‘Oh it’s not so bad, you’ll get over it” – also wrong.

It is good to get over it, be it rape, or beatings, or robbery. But it still is a crime. So we agree on that point too.

Actually, feminists love to delve into traumas, instead of trying to get over the psychological damage.

Feminists try the opposite. They try to traumatize women who got over a non violent but forcible rape, they make them aware about how terrible they should be traumatized for life. Being beaten by the neighborhood bully, the one you see on the street every day, is quite traumatizing too. Feminists should not have monopoly for trauma. Rape is a trauma, so are many other life events.

I bet this guy (because of course this is a guy) would change his opinion pretty damn fast if someone pummelled him into submission before jamming a large phallus-shaped object up his ass. Let’s see him make these asinine comparisons then.

You failed to understand the argument: a large part of rapes, nowadays, is NOT of the type you described: violent, dangerous, 100% non-consensual, with proven injuries.

Rather we talk about this type of date rape: often fully consensual, even enthusiastic consent, but invalidated by allegations of drunkenness, or simple unproven claims of non-consent.

And even the violent, non-consensual type of rape nowadays does not mean that the victim will be ostracised for the rest of her/his life, unable to marry, unable to lead a normal life. Less terrible than in the bast, though still terrible.